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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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WHAT GOD REQUIRES OF THIS MTION. 



A SERMO 



f 

il 3Uri®63, 



I» readied on F-ast I>ay, A.pril HU, 1863 

IN THK 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, LENA, ILL., 

BY 

REV. ISAAC B. BI^AISrCH, 

Pastor of the Baptist Church. 



CHICAGO: 

CHURCH »t GOODMAX, 
51 La Salle Street. 



^ 



45S 

£21 



E^^J^C 



Lena, April 31, 1863. 
REV^SfXc B. Branch: 

Dear Sir — Believing that the good of our 
common country and the cause of truth will be 
advanced thereby, we, the undersigned, respect- 
fully (Yequest a copy of your sermon, delivered 
on Fast Day, April 30, 1863, for publication. 

Respectfully yours, ^^^^^^^ 

S. H. M^E i^MiMA N, 

W. W. iIall, 
E. Ripley, 
D. Bai^ley, 
J. B. Hinckley, 
G. M. Barnes. 

'OS- 



/4^9 



WHAT GOD EEQUIEES. 



IsAiAu, Iviii : 6 : Is not this the fist that I have 
chosen ; to loose the bands of wickedness, to un- 
do the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed 
go free, and that ye break every yoke ? 

We are gathered here to-day in answer 
to the call of our Chief Magistrate. He in- 
vites us to seek the forgiveness of God for 
our national and individual sins. And while 
it becometh us to worship God in the great 
cono;rec;ation. I would fain b'^lieve that vou 
have not forgotten your family altars and 
your clcTsets. That from these has already 
ascended your humble and penitent cry for 
mercy, mingled with devout adofation of the 
Giver of every good and perfect gift. \i these 
have been neglected, you are but poorly pre- 
pared for the solemn assembly, and the in- 
structions of the sanctuary. 

God alone can give us a teachable spirit 
in those things pertaining to his worship ; 
and especially ability to discover the nature 
and number of our sins. AVe are constitu- 
tionally opposed to self-examination. Sin 
iurks in the secret chambers of the heart. — 



Like a nest of vipers in the deep, dark re- 
cesses of the rocks, it hides from the light ; 
we see not its double tongue, nor its slimy 
contortions. We dread not its deadly fangs, 
until God pours a flood of divine, all-search- 
ing light upon the foul nest of corruption. 
And, even then, like Cleopatra, we are much 
inclined to hide the viper amid the flowers 
and fruits of self-deception until it has ac- 
complished its work of death. 

If this be true of the sins of the individual 
heart, it is true, in a ten-fold degree, of the 
sins of this great Nation. Patriotism, and 
national pride conspire to blind a republican 
people to their national sins. Add to this 
the constantly cherished idea that as individ- 
uals among the millions, we — i. e. — you and 
I, are not responsible for the sins of the na- 
tion, and we find one of the chief obstacles 
to national repentance and reform. Patri- 
otism, than which, properly exercised, man 
has not a nobler virtue. Patriotism, I say, in 
swelling enthusiasm, cries out, " My coun- 
try first ! my country last ! and my coun- 
try forever !" And just one step further it 
cries, " My country, right, or wrong !" — 
This last was well-nigh a cry of universal 
acceptance in the late war with Mexico ; and 
yet a more heaven-daring sentiment, in war 
or peace, was never adopted by any people, 
and especially by a people who have the 
power to make their nation just M^hat they 
please. The fact is, there is no true patriot- 



/J7/ 



riotism in such a war cry. My country right 
is my country preserved and defended by 
the power of God, and my country wrong 
is my country in defiance of God Almighty. 
He- who will do wrong for his country, will 
not scruple to do wrong against his country, 
whenever interest prompts him to such a 
course. As evidence ot this, let me say that, 
so far as my memory serves me, the very 
men who were the bold originators of this 
horrid war-cry then, are the same men who 
now, when our country is well-nigh rent in- 
to ruinous fragments by this unholy rebel- 
lion, cry, " Peace — peace," and " Remember 
the Constitutional rights of the rebels." — 
They look upon our country, bleeding at ev- 
ery pore, caring not that she is either in her 
death agonies, or the birth throe of a higher 
life ; and like the venomous serpent, they 
strike their deadly fangs into her body cor- 
porate whenever and wherever they can do 
so and escape the war-club of her wrath. 
The fact is no man ever was a true patriot, 
who avowed himself ready to do or defend 
wrong for his country. I repeat he who 
will do wrong for his country, will do wrong 
against his country ! 

God has brought our executive and law- 
making power to acknowledge that some- 
how and somewhere there is a wrong among 
us, for which He is justly angry with us as 
a nation. And we are called together to- 
day to fast and pray, and seek to know what 



6 

that wronc is, that we may forsake it and 
obtain forgiveness. If we would obtain for- 
giveness of God we must fast in such a man- 
ner as will please God. It is, then, a ques- 
tion of the first importance, " How should 
our nation fast ?" I shall endeavor to an- 
swer this question, and with this object in 
view, I have chosen the text as a key to a 
right understanding of what God will accept 
at our hands. 

Isaiah was sent as a prophet to teach na- 
tions. His was no mission to individuals, 
except when individuals stood as representa- 
tives of a people. Hence you will find his 
prophecies addressed to Israel, Judah and 
the surrounding nations. This lact is of 
great importance in rightly understanding our 
text. That which is spoken to a nation, in 
its corporate capacity is often quite difierent 
from that which would be spoken to an indi- 
vidual under similar circumstances. What 
would be quite inapplicable and inappropri- 
ate to the one, would be entirely appropri- 
ate to the other. 

Our text and context are emphatically 
national in their bearing. Otherwise under- 
stood, they are in tacit contradiction with 
other portions of God's word. Of individ- 
uals God accepts prayer and fasting in sack- 
cloth and ashes. When the wicked king 
Ahab, by the advice of the woman Jezebel, 
had killed Naboth, and was about to take 
poi-:s?ssion of his vineyard, he was met by 



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Elijah with denunciations for the act, and 
immediately " he rent his clothes and put 
sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay 
in sackcloth, and went softly," and the Lord 
accepted it at his hands, so far as to put 
away the threatened calamity from him as 
an individual ; but as kings, neither he nor 
his family put away their idolatrous oppres- 
sion, nor loosed in their hearts their bands[of 
wickedness, and God finally cut them off 
with all the leaders in that national rebell- 
ion. So also these Jews whom Isaiah ad- 
dressed in our text, had fasted and were fast- 
ing as individuals. They were afflicting their 
souls — some of them hypocritically, it is 
true — but many sincerely. The honest and 
laithful among them wept over the sins of 
the nation, and all such men as Isaiah and 
J eremiah would gladly have put away the 
fearful sin of their nation ; but it was be- 
yond their power. The great mass of the 
nation was wholly given ua to idolatry and 
its laws were idolatrous and oppressive. So 
that, while as individuals, many of them fas- 
ted, and went softly before the Lord, and 
were accepted in so doing, yet, as a nation, 
God visited upon them the threatened calam- 
ities, and as individuals they suffered in those 
calamities. 

While a minority thus fasted, the major- 
ity fasted for strife, seeking by outward and 
apparent sorrow to avert the threatened ca- 
himities, that they might have the better op- 



8 



portunities under cover of national laws and 
customs to oppress and smite their fellows 
with the fist of wickedness. But our con- 
text says all this will not do ; this is not the 
fast that God has chosen. Thus our text 
teaches that, 

The only fast which God accepts of na- 
tions in their corporate capacity is the absolute 
and entire abolitio?i, jmttiny away of all wick- 
ed and oppressive laws. This is the fast he 
has chosen. And this fact is not without its 
obvious reasons : 

I. The first of these is that nations, as 
such, have no bodies except a body corpo- 
rate, and this body corporate cannot hunger 
and thirst — it cannot fast and pray. It can- 
not sit in sackcloth, nor yet dwell in ashes, 
with any consciousness of sorrow, or afflic- 
tion. If our nation must fast literally, who 
shall go hungry 1 Shall Abraham Lincoln 1 
He is not the nation. Shall Congress and 
the Judges of the Supreme Court '? These 
are not the nation. Shall the Cabinet? They 
are not the nation. All, all these might die 
to-morrow, and still the nation would exist. 
All these may fast, and still the nation does 
not fast. Yet all these, elected by the peo- 
ple, create and keep in existence what God 
recognizes as the nation. 

II. Nations, as such, have no soul exce^it 
their expressed will or their enacted laws. — 
That which stands before God as the respon- 
sible existence of a nation is its corporate 



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doings. God recognizes as the nation what 
man recognizes as the nation, viz., not the 
agent; but the act. To illustrate, a minis- 
ter of state to a foreign government, no mat- 
ter how acceptable as an individual, will not 
be accepted and accredited if the law-mak- 
ing power instructs him to do things offens- 
ive to that government. Thus God told 
Israel (See Ezekiel 14 : 20) when the elders 
came to inquire of him, he would punish 
Israel for her sins, and " though Noah, Dan- 
iel and Job were in it, they shall deliver 
neither son nor daughter. They shall de- 
liver but their own souls by their righteous- 
ness." God looks behind the individual 
representative of a nation, righteous though 
he may be, and judges it by its national 
acts. Hence, the only way in which a na- 
tion, as such, can keep a fast acceptably to 
God is by putting away its wicked laws, its 
offensive corporate acts. This is the fast 
which God has chosen for nations. This, 
and this only, will he accept at our hands to 
turn away his wrath from us ! 

Now proper religious fasting by the in- 
dividual includes the hunting out and putting 
away sin, and also incidentally the purifying 
of body and soul. But you and I, and mil- 
lions more, including every individual in 
this state and nation, may bow down our 
heads like a bulrush with sorrow, afflicting 
and purifying as far as in our power soul 
and body both, and it will never purify the 



10 

soul and body of this nation ! God recog- 
nizes our Constitution and Laws as the body 
and soul of this nation. As individuals we 
]nay, and should exercise the most humble 
penitence on account of the part we have 
had in the great sins of which the nation is 
guilty, and yet this will be at most but the 
begiiniing of the national fast which God re- 
quires of us. Nay, if ive go no further it 
will not be the beginning of such a fast ! 
God requres of nations, as such, not sack- 
cloth, ashes and tears, but acts I Acts that 
purge our statute books and Constitution ! 
Not that a man should afflict his soul, but 
that a nation should arise in its might and 
put away its legalized abominations ! Let 
us not deceive ourselves ; " God is not mock- 
ed." Let us not suppose that when we, the 
people of this nation, have becomingly spent 
this day of fasting and prayer we have done 
all that God requires of us — that we may 
then fold our hands in self-complacent ex- 
pectation that God will put away his judg- 
ments from us. Nay, let us rather feel that 
we have just buckled on our armor and 
rubbed the dust from our eyes ; that from 
this good hour we will go forth to hunt these 
obnoxious, God-defying laws from our stat- 
ute books as the Jews did the old leaven 
from their houses, that as a state and a na- 
tion we may become a new lump, which 
fehall not be a stench in the nostrils of Jeho- 
vah. 



/r3 

That we may the better understand what 
we have to do, and where to begin in this 
work, let us turn again to our text and en- 
deavor to learn how to please God, in an 
acceptable and appropriate National Fast. 
Our text reads — " Is not this the fast that I 
have chosen, to loose the bands of wicked- 
ness, ti. undo the heavy burdens, and to let 
the oppressed go free, and that ye break 
every yoke ?" 

1. The first thing which we find here that 
God chooses, is, " to loose the bands of 
wickedness." These bands of wickedness I 
understand to mean the combinations which 
men form for the purpose of carrying out 
their wicked and selfish designs and purpos- 
es. Had we any of these among us when 
this war commenced ? Let us see. What 
were our two great political parties, and 
what had been their most prominent objects I 
I ask in all candor if their real foundation 
principles had not been, "To the victors 
belong the spoils ?" which is only another 
version of " Miglit makes right." And I 
ask again if, in carrying out this principle, 
they had not vied with each other in efforts 
to see which could most effectually " out- 
Ilerod Herod" in repudiating the law of God 
as being not at all applicable to national 
affairs? Have not both these parties in 
nearly all cases sought so to construe our 
Constitution as utterly to repudiate justice 
to one class, while they fed and the fostered 



12 



other on the spoils of oppression ? Look at 
it ! While the Constitution winks hard at 
slavery and oppression, it does not, except 
by forced yet customary construction, sanc- 
tion or establish that crime against God and 
man — human chattelism. But both parties, 
embodying the law-making power, have so 
interpreted it as to flivor the oppressor and 
not the oppressed. 

First came the compromises with the 
.slave oligarchy. Next came the annexation 
of Texas to keep up the balance of power 
for slavery. Next the Mexican war, which, 
however much that brigand people may 
have deserved it, will be found to have 
]>een gotten up, nominally to avenge our 
wrongs, but really to extend the area of 
slavery. And it is no thanks to the wire- 
workers that it failed in the execution. It 
was God's mercy to this nation that pre- 
vented it. Had the territory acquired from 
Mexico been made slave territory it would 
have added not only the population, but the 
gold and silver of California to swell the 
number and wealth of our enemies. Do you 
doubt it 1 Show me one foot of slave terri- 
tory M'hich did not side with the rebellion in 
the outset of this war. On the other hand. 
Avhere is there a single rood of free territory 
which has stood up to divide and cripple our 
nation 1 

Thus we see that had not God in his pro- 
vidence overthrown the quondam schemes 



13 ^ 

of these bands of vrickedness, our nation 
would, in all probability, have been hope- 
lessly rent asunder. Next after this Mexi- 
"^"an war scheme came the oppressor thunder- 
ing at the doors of the Capitol, demanding 
ijreater security tor slave property. And 
Jongress, instead of telling him in the true 
vpirit of the Constitution, " Go, sir, and take 
»'our chattels as Northern and Southern men 
io their horses; go 'prove property, pay 
charges and take them away,' " instead 
ji saying or doing this. Congress passed a 
law which mounted, booted and spurred 
every U. S. Marshal in the land and set him 
off with all the blood-hounds of the nation 
yelping at his heels, to catch the panting 
fugitive to whom God had said "If ye may 
be free, choose it rather." 

And a vast majority of the nation sanc- 
tioned and glorified this law ; notwithstand- 
ing it actually violated the Constitution in 
;many of its provisions; not the least of 
which is its unlawful suppression of the right 
to the writ of habeas corpus. And, by the 
way, it is a curious fact that the very men 
who have been the most earnest in abetting 
the execution of that illegal and unnecessary 
1* suppression of that writ, are the first to 
* groan under its necessary and ler/al suppres- 
sion at the present time ! Thus it is that 
God often pays men down in their own 
coin. 

But, to return, when all this had been 



14 



done, as if the nation was not enough com- 
mitted to slavery by the Constitution and 
by this law, the Supreme Court came in 
with a decision which virtually said that one 
class, of four millions, had no rights which 
the out-numbering millions were bound to 
respect. In other words, '• might makes 
rio;ht," and " to the victors belono: the 
spoils." And the two great parties vied 
with each other in seeing which could most 
fully endorse the measure, and carry enough 
of the people with them to secure political 
preferment. Were these bands of wi(*ked- 
ness or were they not ? Look at them with 
eyes opened by the incidents and necessities 
of this war, and then decide the question. 
And did not these party bands extend from 
the school-house caucus for Constable up to 
the halls of Congress and the Supreme 
Court l Had not political corruption well 
nigh reached its climax in nearly if not quite 
all of the political organizations of the day ? 
Had not even professed Christians almost 
adopted the principle that " religion should 
have nothing to do with polities'?" 

Here then was need of such fasting as God 
requires, viz., "to loose (these party) bands 
of wickedness." But we did not thus last. 
And what we would not do for ourselves 
God sent this war to do for us. And how 
like lightning did it accomplish the work! 
The first gun at Sumter had scarcely ceased 
to echo through our forests ahd over our 



15 /^'^ 

prairies, when behold Douglas and Seward, 
and uU the then great party-leaders, stood 
side by side as if by magic, striving to out- 
do each other in casting down their party 
war-clubs, and taking up the sword against 
the hydra-headed monster of this State 
Rights Slaveholding Rebellion ! — a rebellion 
nursed into life and activity by the cringing 
compromises of the law-making and execu- 
tive powers of this nation. 

2. The second thing which God requires 
in an acceptable national fast is " to undo 
the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go 
free !" The law of Moses requires that " If 
thou see the beast of him that hateth thee 
lying under his burde^", thou shalt surely 
help him." Had we any beasts among us • 
lying under their burdens'? Nay, had we 
not human bein<:cs amonij us who were 
ground into beasts by the iron heel of op- 
pression? It is a burden under which our 
Anglo-Saxon blood (to say nothing of the ,■ 
poor African) is bound, and compelled to * 
grind in the prison-house of lust, in utter 
violation of God's law of marriage, and this 
too by the sanction of laws backed up and 
supported by your votes and mine. Were 
there not, and are there not still, millions 
groaning and dying under this load of op- 
pression? And is not our national law the 
galling chain that binds their burden upon 
them ? Did we fast — did we " undo these / 
heavv burdens before this war commenced ? ' 



f'. 



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16 



Nay, did we not enter upon this war holding 
out even to the rebels the tempting assurance 
that, come what would, slavery should re- 
main as it was?" The burden should not 
be undone, and the oppressed should not go 
free ! The spiked heel of our nation should 
not bate one hair of its pressure upon these 
lour or five millions of human beings ! Did 
we not for months use these very beings as 
spies and guides for our army, and then 
either send them back to, or suffer them to 
fall into the hands of, their masters and be 
hung for their runaway service to us ? Was 
this undoing the heavy burdens ? Was this 
letting the oppressed go free ? 

But, as in loosing the bands of wickedness 
so in this case, what we utterly refused to 
do God has suffered this war to do for us. 
It has at last made us to know that by re- 
fusing to do this we were but feeding the 
scorpion which seeks to sting us to death. 
It has made us ashamed of our imbecility 
in supposing that we could feed the viper 
while extracting his fangs. Oh, I remember 
the words of our noble, yet sometimes err- 
ing Commander in Chief when he said, in 
substance, " I am not prepared to place black 
men in our army and navy on an equality 
with our white soldiers in fighting for our 
country." And I felt and said then, " that 
must be taken back before this war closes." 
A,nd as I look at the organized regiments of 
fieed men I am ready to exclaim, not "See 



17 /^ 

how we have fasted as we should have 
done !" but " See how God has permitted 
our enemies to compel us to do his pleasure 
in these things !" Our proclamation of 
freeedom is not a vountary measure, but it 
is a war necessity. A cutting of the rope 
which, by God's permission, was tightening 
around the neck of this nation, and would 
soon have garrotted us into submission. 
And while 1 honor and respect our Presi- 
dent for the act, I repeat, it is not such an 
act of voluntary fasting as God requires, but 
an act forced upon us by our own persistent 
efforts in an opposite direction. Indeed, I 
know of but one voluntary act of our nation 
which takes a step in that direction, and 
that is the abolishing of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. And to what sSi extent 
this was not an absolute necessity is yet to 
be shown. All else has been wrung from 
us by the increasing peril of the nation, as y] 
manifested in the full development of this >^ 
hell-born rebellion ! <^ 

3. One other point in God's chosen flist 
claims our special attention at this time, 
and that is, " that ye break every yoke." 
Many an ox has been unyoked at night to 
be yoked again in the morning. And many 
an old ox has been unyoked for the slaugh- 
ter, that an unbroken steer might take his 
place in the yoke. The yoke was not brok- 
en. So Mr. Lincoln in his proclamation has 
broken no yokes. Thank God, he has un- 



18 

yoked ?ome thousands, if not millions, and 
some of them are already in the ranks for 
slaughter. But the yoke is not yet broken. 
This is yet to be done by the people at "the 
ballot box. 

So of the yokes of political parties, they 
are not yet broken. When the war broke 
upon us like a summer tornado, the politi- 
cal leaders unyoked the parties and said to 
them, " Go, fight for your country ;" but 
they set up the yokes for use whenever the 
" free fight" was over. What said Mr. 
Douglas ? I quote from memory : " First 
save the Union, and then we shall have a 
field on which to renew our party contests." 
And this was adopted and applauded by the 
great majority of our nation. And it was 
right, so far as the proposition to save our 
country was concerned. But he saved the 
yoke. " Then we shall have a field on which 

\to renew our party contests."* 
This unyoking was forced upon the lead- 
ers by the flict thhat as a nation we were, 
and are, well-nigh ruined by wearing these 
yokes o^ party regardless of w?'f/ic?*p/e. Let 
me illustrate this. Here are two men in a 
frail, open boat on the wide sea. They have 
gold on board which is the common property 
of both. They fall into a dispute, each 
finally laying claim to the entire amount. 

* Since this sermon was delivered I' see Mr. 
Crittenden comes out in similar lanijuage. 



19 



/^f 



From words they come to blows, and during 
their violent contest the boat springs a leak, 
and the water comes pouring in like a flood. 
They see it ; they must bail it or go to the 
bottom. None but fools or mad men would 
continue their contest under such circum- 
stances. And so these leaders, like wise men, 
unyoked the parties and said " Bail out." 
But I am sorry to say the mad men are not 
all rational yet. There are those that cry 
lustily " the ship is sinking," and yet con- 
tinue their unhallowed party contests. These 
men say, " Wear the yoke now." Mr. 
Douglas said, " Go free and fight for your 
country, but save the yoke." God says, 
" Break the yoke ." destroy it utterly^ that 
men may never come under its conscience- 
galling crooks again ! Look to God for 
principles and not to party leaders. Party 
leaders have laughed to scorn all appeals to 
" God's higher law " and appealed to the 
Constitution. 

There has been, and yet is a Constitution 
idolatry among us which God abhors. Our 
lathers that fashioned and adopted our Con- 
stitution never dreamed that it was perfect, 
and therefore made provision for its amend- 
ment. But we have christened it a god, and 
bowed down to worship it. What more 
does the heathen man '? He fashioneth his 
god with a graving tool, and then bows 
down to it. God will yet break up this idol- 
atry, if we do not forsake it. And if we 



■^ 



20 



do not purge our state and national constitu- 
tions of their yokes of oppression, God will 
cast them to the moles and bats. Let me 
not be misinterpreted here. I counsel no 
violation of these constitutions ; but I do 
say amend them, so that they shall recog- 
nize God as the rightful ruler of the uni- 
verse, and all men as having an " inalienable 
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness." 

God has partially broken these political 
party yokes for us, and it remains for us to 
complete the work. This done, let us hunt 
for honesty, '• thrusting the lantern of Diog- 
enes in the face" of every party, no matter 
what its name or pretension, and if it bear 
not the test of this scrutiny, reject it, disown 
it, trample it under foot. Suffer no yoke 
to come upon your necks, but that which 
God imposes — viz., the obligation to do 
right. When you would seek for a lawma- 
ker, bring out your lantern and hunt for an 
honest. God-fearing man. Let the first ques- 
tion be that good old JefFersonian one, " Is 
he honest T Not is he a whig, democrat, 
or a republican, but in all his law making 
will he fear God and love justice ! Let this 
be the corner stone of preferment and these 
political and oppressive yokes will be bro- 
ken, scattered to the four winds, and we shall 
become " a people whose God is the Lord," 
and not the Constitution or the party. 

Let political leaders know that the people 



21 



// 



demand sober, honest men for office and we 
shall soon see such a fast in our nation as 
God requires. As it is, we are a nation 
which is ashamed to acknowledge God in 
our Constitution and laws, and afraid to al- 
together deny him. Our reform must be- 
gin with the foundation of our Government, 
the people. But just here lies the difficulty. 
The masses are corrupted. 

It is sometimes said religiously, " Like 
priest, like people." And it certainly might 
with equal propriety be said politically — 
" Like politicians like people." As was said 
of the Jewish nation, " The whole head is 
sick and the whole heart is faint." This is 
shown, not only in our laws, but in the daily 
transactions of business. It is shown in the 
laws of our own State. Adultery is a crime 
unknown to our State laws, while by the 
same laws our fellow-creatures are being 
sold into poor-hoU"?e slavery for the horrid 
crime of remaining on our polluted soil. 
Fraud and deception are lurking in almost 
every corner. Weights are light or heavy 
to suit the buyer or seller, graduated by the 
chances of detection. Adulteration of nearly 
all articles of commerce is the rule, and pu- 
rity is the great, grand exception. Bank- 
ruptcies for large amounts are deliberately 
planned and executed to enrich the bank- 
rupt. Frauds on the Government are of 
daily occurrence. Men make haste to be 
rich, and are not guiltless. Professed reli- 



V 



22 

aion shapes itself too often to the demands 
of a perverted and debauched popuhir opin- 
ion. Even the pulpit must sometimes ring 
forth the eloquence of angels and tlie smooth- 
tongued flattery of devils, or be repudiated 
by the professed disciples of the meek and 
lowly Jesus. Truly, "the whole head is 
sick, and the whole heart is fliint." 

And what is the remedy 1 It is not in re- 
form societies. If it were, we had been heal- 
ed long ago. This is pre-eminently an age 
of societies. We have societies for every- 
thing, and everybody is, more or less enga- 
ged in them. The remedy is two-fold, and 
God alone is the Great Physician. The first 
remedy is the converting, regenerating pow- 
er of God. This, and this alone can save us. 
This, like the salt which Elisha cast into the 
spring of Jericho, can purify the fountain 
heads of all this flood of iniquity. The un- 
savory salt of hypocrisy and lalse religion 
will never do it. 

The second is the judgments of God. — 
These cured Sodom, but they destroyed So- 
dom ! And these will soon cure us if the 
first remedy is not taken by enough individ- 
uals to save the nation. God Almighty holds 
the sceptre of mercy in one hand and the 
sword of justice in the other, beseeching us 
as a nation, and as individuals, to touch the 
one and escape the other. As a nation, we 
have thus iar said, " Nay, we will none of 
thy reproofs." And He hath already " whet- 



23 



ted his glittering sword, and his hand taketh 
hold on vengeance." Already is the wail of 
mothers, widows and orphans heard all over 
the land. 

In view of these facts, and what God re- 
quires of us, " let us humble ourselves un- 
der the mighty hand of God," and mourn- 
ing over our individual sins, let us arise to 
" loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the 
heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, 
and to break every yoke." Let us do this 
hopefully, trustingly, and with a ready mind. 
God will hear and answer prayers when our 
prayers and our acts go together. God does 
not demand of us in this emergency that we 
be craven-hearted cowards, and least of all 
that we be sneaking traitors, snapping and 
snarling at the heels of those who have gone 
to fight our battles. But he does demand 
that we smite with " the sword of the Lord, 
and of" Lincoln with all becoming loyalty. 

Samuel did not a holier work when ihe 
" hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord" than 
do our armies in hewing down these blood- 
hounds of the Pit, who have come in battk 
array to destroy the best government in ex- 
istence. While I see and mourn over the 
wrongs of the North, I envy not the man who 
can see no wrongs but Northern wrong-do- 
ings, and no rights but the Constitutional 
rights of rebels. Northern rights as com- 
pared with Southern rights in this war are, 
in my estimation, the rights of Esther and 



"-K^ 



24: 

Mordecai. And Southern rights are the 
rights of Haman. And my prayer is that 
God will forgive the penitent and grant the 
incorrigible traitor his rights. 

Pray, my hearers — tast and pray — but 
see to it that you fast in a political and na- 
tional, as well as moral and religious sense. 
Fast at the ballot box if you would save our 
natioii. And by prayers and effort do all in 
your power to nerve the arm that strikes 
for liberty. If we strike for liberty we 
strike for God. If wc strike for oppression 
God strikes tcs ! 



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